I have a 5 1/2 month old daughter. My in-laws have a 3 year old bulldog that has gone after my daughter several times. When I ask them to put the dog in another room away from daughter, they say, "it's not fair to the dog and the dog has feelings too" What would you do in my situation?




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Pink on white is really annoying to read FYI.

I'd tell them to buy a crate, train the dog, or put the dog in another room, but until they act like responsible grandparents I wouldn't bring my child over there. If anything were to happen you'll regret it.

Dogs are dogs. I love my dogs like they are family, but people need to understand that at the end of the day, a dog is still a dog. They aren't going to die from spending a couple hours in a room, a crate, a kennel, or wherever else you want to put them.

How often have you, as a human being, been in a situation where you didn't have fun for a few hours??? If I can spend 8 hours in an auto shop's waiting room being told "it'll be done in an hour" for 6 of the 8 hours*, and still walk out alive, then a dog can hang out in the bedroom too. Lying down in one room or the other doesn't make a difference.

*OK fine i confess, I walked to the mall and got a massage. But it was horrible and i will never go back there again. So I guess you could say, not only did I spend all day waiting in a small room, but I also got tortured when I tried to escape!

Thank you for your reply
I'am sorry for the pink text

Duplicate post deleted

I fully aggree there.
I had an issue with my grandmothers' dog when my nephew and I were over there a few christmas's ago. My nephew was 4 at the time, and my grandmothers' rescue, "buddy", a lhasa mix, kept trying to bite him. I was on the floor playing with my nephew, and this dog kept trying to go around me to bite him, unprovoked. After about 3 times, I got my uncle involved, and he grabbed the dog and put it outside for the remainder of our visit. My grandmother asked why her dog was screaming and howling (it was trying to bite my uncle, unsuccessfully) and she was told what the dog was doing, and that it would be outside.
A little different situation, but I thought reading it might help - when it comes to children, they come first, and their safety is absolutely non negotiable. No matter who gets pissed off.

Until the grandparents will say that they would put the dog in a crate before I walked through the door with the child, I would not even go into the house. Invite them to your home instead,where you can protect your child. Give them the choice your child visiting or their dog in a crate, even in another room uncrated can be bad, what if someone accidently opens the door and the dog runs out (my opinion, if the dog can't be crated, because it isn't fair, chances are that the dog is not trained and is the pack leader of the home). I love dogs, and they are a big part of my life, however, my grandchildren or any other childs safety is always number 1. In fact, even the child thinking that the dog might hurt him, example: a big bouncy puppy, I never leave the puppy uncrated, unless I have them on a leash and in full control of her not jumping or mouthing the child. because I want my grandchildren to grow up liking dogs and not being afraid of them.
In fact the more I think about it, I'd be concerned with wanting my child with someone at anytime that doesn't put the safety of my child first over a dog. but, that's just me.

I totally agree with all the advice given above. There's absolutely no middle ground, no wiggle room on this issue.

What I would add is that, as usual, this site has great resources you can use:

http://leerburg.com/articles.htm#kids
http://leerburg.com/pdf/introducingdogsandbabies.pdf
http://leerburg.com/pdf/Preventing%20Dog%20Bites%20in%20Children.pdf

Maybe it needs to be brought up by your husband, or better yet, both of you as a united couple. They need to understand your concerns and the dangers, or there won't be any visits to grandma and grandpa.

Mike


Edited by Mike Armstrong (07/11/2008 09:43 AM)
Edit reason: spelling

Ditto to every post here.

I'd probably link the dog's owners to this thread and explain that I wanted the advice of experienced dog trainers and handlers, and that this was the UNANIMOUS advice. Because I guarantee that there could be fifty more posts to this thread, and no one is going to say anything different.

No one who knows dogs and has half a brain is going to say anything different.

I will assume that your in-laws do not know dogs.

Buy them the Dominant and Aggressive dogs DVD from this site. If I was over at someone else's house and they refused to put away a dog that has shown aggression to my son, I'd leave immediately. I don't care if they are my in-laws or any other family.

When my little brother was 4, he was bitten in the face, unprovoked, by my cousin's yellow lab. He needed reconstructive surgery and had over 200 stitches. 25+ years later, he still has some pretty bad scars from it. And for those wondering what happened to the dog, he met the business end of a .270 Winchester about an hour after the attack.